CONSPIRACY THEORISTS WHO OPPOSE ELECTRONIC VOTING SUGGEST WE RETURN TO THE GOOD OLD DAYS OF ‘HANGING CHADS’

Cavala ignores (once again) the true argument against "electronic" systems--that is, systems where there is no way of
checking what the actual vote count was. When there is a mistake, it is impossible to find out what happened, which is what happened in the 13th Congressional District in Sarasota County.

The Democrats need to quit letting this guy manage campaigns and instead hire somebody who actually cares if our votes get counted.

California law requires a "paper trail" as a guard against the problem raised by Publius.

except that the paper is flimsy and deteriorates over time, and only a handful of people actually look at their "paper ballot." A true paper ballot is one on which people mark their choices, as opposed to a computer marking it for them. Furthermore, the key security problem is not the actual voting machines, but the central tabulating computers used in each county that use Windows software! yes, you heard me, Windows Software, which any hacker knows is easily penetrated.

i dont understand how america is in the state that its in when it comes to fast food - over half of you are fat
and this voting box doesnt keep a record of your imformation thats why it gets so easily tampered with and they blam it on hackers
its easier to hack something then to build a wall
another thing is out of 300 million americans mr bush is the president isnt there anyone smarter than him in USA ? doesnt any of yous have a heart about what your doing to the rest of the world
USA is on the top when it comes to power and everyone is affected by it, isnt Usa ment to be at war will afgahnistan not iraq?
thank you

i dont understand how america is in the state that its in when it comes to fast food - over half of you are fat
and this voting box doesnt keep a record of your imformation thats why it gets so easily tampered with and they blam it on hackers
its easier to hack something then to build a wall
another thing is out of 300 million americans mr bush is the president isnt there anyone smarter than him in USA ? doesnt any of yous have a heart about what your doing to the rest of the world
USA is on the top when it comes to power and everyone is affected by it, isnt Usa ment to be at war will afgahnistan not iraq?
thank you

Unless the paper trail is kept at the polling place and turned into the registrar (as paper ballots are now), it's going to be impossible to track down the paper ballots. What is really needed is a machine that generates an object (a paper sheet) which can be read by eye, even if the choices are by keying an electronic screen. These sheets of paper would then be perused by the voter to make certain they matched the screen (most wouldn't look, but some would, and that would be enough), and put in a locked box the way paper ballots are. Then, in case of a challenge, the two numbers (the machine totals and the paper ballots) could be compared. Also, after an election, a certain percent of precincts would have these paper hard-copy duplicates added up by hand and compared with the machine totals (this could happen a few weeks after the election when things are less busy but before certification).

I agree with your thrust, publius. I forgot to mention that the only way we are going to get back to a publicly run system of voting and vote counting(de-privatizing our elections-see today's NYTimes)is for all of you reading this great site to band together with friends and neighbors in your respective counties, visit your Boards of Supervisors and Registrars of Voters, and tell them we want an honest, safe transparent election process. If you need to learn more about this whole subject, please check out these web sites to deepen your understanding of this critical issue of electronic voter suppression.
1. Votersunite.org
2.Blackboxvoting.org
3.Countedascast.com

Till victory.

Once again, Bill Cavala shows his ignorance of the issues involved in the security of electronic voting. How this man can state such false "facts" with such authority is amazing to me.

Here is my favorite:
To fraudulently alter the results of an election would require the cooperation of the polling place officials. At stake would be what? 1200 votes? (You’d have to leave some to the opposition to avoid an investigation). Would the 1200 votes be enough to shift California’s electoral votes from the Democrat to the Republicans? If not, how many other polling place officials and hackers would be required in the conspiracy?

How many times can you be wrong in so few sentences?
1. The hacking can occur with no cooperation of polling place officials.
2. The introduced virus or malicious code can be spread to other machines and the central tabulator. This was shown by the Princeton Study on the Diebold equipment. It was asked about two different ways at the hearings - both time Matt Bishop did NOT answer - saying the information was in the private report.
3. The Brennan Center did a detailed study of different ways to hack and how many people would have to know about it. I suggest Mr. C. actually read this before he opens his mounts.

4.By the way, when was the last time he was a pollworker? At least in my county, there are about 1000 potential voters per polling place and typically there are 450 voters. That is spread across a number of machines at the polling place. So where does he get his 1200 voter numbers from?

I could go on and on but I have a real life, trying to fight for election integrity, not countering uneducated propaganda.

Thanks so much for this forum!

Once again, Bill Cavala shows his ignorance of the issues involved in the security of electronic voting. How this man can state such false "facts" with such authority is amazing to me.

Here is my favorite:
To fraudulently alter the results of an election would require the cooperation of the polling place officials. At stake would be what? 1200 votes? (You’d have to leave some to the opposition to avoid an investigation). Would the 1200 votes be enough to shift California’s electoral votes from the Democrat to the Republicans? If not, how many other polling place officials and hackers would be required in the conspiracy?

How many times can you be wrong in so few sentences?
1. The hacking can occur with no cooperation of polling place officials.
2. The introduced virus or malicious code can be spread to other machines and the central tabulator. This was shown by the Princeton Study on the Diebold equipment. It was asked about two different ways at the hearings - both time Matt Bishop did NOT answer - saying the information was in the private report.
3. The Brennan Center did a detailed study of different ways to hack and how many people would have to know about it. I suggest Mr. C. actually read this before he opens his mounts.

4.By the way, when was the last time he was a pollworker? At least in my county, there are about 1000 potential voters per polling place and typically there are 450 voters. That is spread across a number of machines at the polling place. So where does he get his 1200 voter numbers from?

I could go on and on but I have a real life, trying to fight for election integrity, not countering uneducated propaganda.

Thanks so much for this forum!

Why is Mr. Cavala so proud of 30 years in Sacramento? The place is still as messed up as it was 30 years ago so he is obviously part of the problem, and not one to bring the changes we need.

His whole premise, that citizens concerned about the integrity of the voting system want to go back to hanging chads, is a deliberate attempt to mislead the public and try to attack advocates for transparency. We want a paper trail to certify that the electronic vote tabulation is accurate.

HAVA nice day...

Me engineer 20 or so patents, been vp of engineering, been director of R&D. you political science, do us democrats a favor and become a unpublished teacher. You are clueless to technology and what can be done.

Using your human nature ill-logic the three repugnants who were caught phone jamming is impossible too. Gee they even had 10-20 phone calls to the white house during this that the white house will not release whos phone number it was. how do we say is three years worth getting rich, watch they will be financially rewarded. How is Ollie or G Gordon doing financially?

Here tech challenged what is the error rate of ATMs made by the same company? Do you realize the error rates we have on voting machines would cause the worlds banking system to crash in one day.

as a deg reed engineer who takes deep offense at being called a conspiracy theorist. Believe me I am willing to bet you or anyone I can design and write the code of a system with the present verification systems and steal any election there is. I have assets of well over a million I have made from selling technologies I would be willing to bet you or anyone. this is not rocket science it is so basic and these issues have been known from around the 70s. and yes I can steal the election with machines with the present paper ballots too.

let me add a few more things on vote fraud issues that I have never seen discussed as a possibility.

Even on the punch cards one can cheat from the manufacturing standpoint; now that we have seen hanging chads and how they are counted. I have read that a couple of fellons worked for one of the electronic vote machine companies. One I think was convicted of putting in back doors to steal money. Note that no-one with a criminal record could get a job with companies that make slot machines.

But what I found more interesting is they were involved in manufacturing ballots before they went to electronic machines.

Well here is how I could force errors in punch cards with the readers. I could statistically force certain tabs to return to the punch hole by not die cutting these holes as cleanly as the others. See these holes are pre-die cut but not a complete cut. thus if i dulled one part of the certain hole it would be hardedr to punch and harder to completely seperate, it could be a hanging chad at a higher proportion. and even fill back in when run through the machine in the right direction. thus if the ballot positions of the candidates are determined in advance when I make the ballot I can make the die cutter not as sharp for the one I want to lose. this is virtually undetectable. I am confident that the democratic party is not aware of this ability from the ballot manufacturing perspective. again as an Engineer I have dealt with die cutting membrane switched for electronics products. and as an inventor I am proven to think out of the box.

I almost forgot, I love to pose this simple type of question on debate forums and to date not one person on the right will continue the debate intellectually honestly.

If the vote machines were made by Jane Fonda, M. Moore, the Pope, the Chinese, the Bin Laden Family or Castro would you trust the outcome of any election? so why would you think I should trust the outcome when these are made by partisan republicans?

Sorry, comments are temporarily disabled. We're doing a bit of server maintenance on the commenting area. We'll be back up and running shortly. Thank you for your patience.